All that remained on Wednesday morning to remind the casual visitor that someone else was prime minister for the past three years were those gift mugs, $20 apiece, emblazoned with a picture of Ms Gillard in pearls and declaring she was the 27th PM, 2010-2013.

By mid-afternoon, the shop's entire stock was gone, and staff had ordered a new shipment, due next week.

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Down the road a bit, The Lodge had a lonely look to it, no sign of Ms Gillard and partner Tim Mathieson, as a removal truck rolled up and burly workmen lugged boxes.

Even calls to Ms Gillard's new backbencher's office, vastly more modest than the sprawling suite she has occupied since late June 2010, went unanswered. Only a week ago she had a staff of dozens to answer the phones.

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It seemed unlikely Ms Gillard, having announced she would leave politics at the coming election, would ever occupy the office herself.

New ministers all through the executive wing of Parliament House have plush new lodgings with shiny new nameplates outside declaring their ascendancy over those who have quit or found themselves demoted, reshuffled or replaced.

The plate outside the Prime Minister's Office reads Kevin Rudd. Perhaps it came out of storage. Mr Rudd himself, welcoming Press Gallery journalists in for an evening drink and a happy chat, appeared never to have left.

Mr Rudd's office offered no advice on when he and his family and their pet pooch Abby might occupy The Lodge. Jasper the black cat, immortalised in a children's book about the prime ministerial pets the last time the Rudds lived at The Lodge, expired late last year.

It was left up to another departing member of Canberra's elite, the outgoing US ambassador Jeffrey Bleich, to predict a shining future for Ms Gillard.

Even calls to Ms Gillard's new backbencher's office, vastly more modest than the sprawling suite she has occupied since late June 2010, went unanswered.

''She made a great impression on myself and on President Obama and other leaders in the United States,'' he said. ''I know she will continue to play an important role in the US-Australia relationship and continue to be a respected figure on the world stage.''

Mr Bleich, however, was far too much the practised diplomat to buy into the circumstances of Ms Gillard's going, or Mr Rudd's return.

''We have some pretty funny politics in the US, too,'' he said.

''So we don't throw stones at how other nations choose their leaders and the process in which leadership changes hands.''